


Desserts

by calerine



Series: Compliments to the Chef [3]
Category: Arashi (Band), Japanese Actor RPF, V6
Genre: Food, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-16
Updated: 2015-02-16
Packaged: 2018-03-13 06:38:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3371519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calerine/pseuds/calerine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s sweltering in July.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Desserts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bysine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bysine/gifts).



It’s sweltering in July. Aiba sweats so much he’s sure than he’s lost an inch on his waist just by laying on the veranda and complaining about the heat.

Their small table fan gets overused. At night Aiba lays on his side in bed and listens to its click-click-clicking and Nino in the next room. He pictures him kneeling next to the window, cigarette in hand while he watches the bright round moon and people returning from overtime at the office. Sometimes there’s the faint throwaway strain of music, like Nino fiddling with his guitar or an old Mr Children song from their childhood, someone singing about endless summer days on a beach and Aiba kicks off his blankets so the voice washes over him, touching skin under his rucked-up shirt and falls in tune with the quiet groaning of the fan.

It’s not quite a promise for cooler days, but Aiba likes to make do.

*

In July, Sakamoto opens the top half of the restaurant for lunch. It’s an experiment, he says, with a playful glint in his eyes that spells angry letters from the snobby food critics.

Whoever wants to turn up for service, can. If no-one comes, they don’t open. Sakamoto just pays them extra on top of their usual salaries. They serve fresh juice, bún chả with sweet roast pork and fresh coriander on the side, cold somen noodles sliding smoothly on the bottom of cold plates. Becky loans them her personal soft-serve machine, and Jun churns bits of choux pastry and custard into ice-cream so that when Nino takes a spoonful, it’s exactly like having a cream puff on a hot day, thick cold butteriness that he has to lick off the roof of his mouth. Then just to prove that she can, Becky makes a bacon and egg ice-cream that sells like hot cakes, and high school students from Roppongi High are coming by at one in the afternoon asking for some.

It’s not too much work since the stretch of restaurants is quieter in the day and only their regulars know. Sometimes there’s just Wantanabe, Okada and Nino chatting in the kitchen over noodles until Inohara comes to get Okada, but ends up staying for a cup of iced plum tea and soft-serve.

Nagano comes to eat. Not write - he tells them, smiling around a mouthful of roast pork - if not the secret will be out. Sakamoto talks to him for hours on end. They sit overlooking the wide street, while Ohno rolls out dough for the next day’s open bagels. He comes over after the market, brings fish and a tangible relief to the kitchen that everyone feels but doesn’t articulate. Even Aiba drops by for ice-cream after recording. The entire kitchen knows him well enough to allow him a seat in the corner by the ovens, where he inevitably sprawls out, limbs taking up more and more space as he licks ice-cream off the heels of his hands and bugs Ohno to show him how to know when the dough has proofed enough.

It’s more work for sure, but Nino enjoys this too. He likes to escape from the heat, into the coolness of these narrow familiar work spaces, seeking reprieve in the freezer no matter how many times Jun tells him off for being unprofessional.

And when he feels particularly charitable, Nino lets Fukushi watch while he spatchcocks a chicken, wiping his hands on his whites so turmeric stains make a home on his clothes.

*


End file.
